Ni’s Reviews > How to Kill a City: Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood > Status Update

"... gentrification suppresses and displaces memory, and makes it harder to build lasting justice. This ignorance benefits the powerful..."

History matters, folks.

"The only reason landlords buy rent stabilized buildings is because they know in most cases they can get the people out."

Have I mentioned, lately , again, just how horrible most of the human race seems to be?

What?! First of all the idea that there could exist an apartment worth $100 million is mind-boggling to me let alone that it's only taxed as if it were worth three to four million USD, and then , even worse, as if that were possible, of absentee homeownership having grown by 70%; the idea that all of these unbelievably expensive apartments could be just sitting empty is horrendous and sickening.

These tax breaks end up costing the federal government four to five times what it spends on public housing each year home mortgages are still subsidized today via tax deductions that rise with the expense of a new home. Hang on, I knew there was a mortgage deduction obviously because I took it when I own the house, but I didn't realize that that wasn't a flat deduction. So the rich still get richer even when the midd

So that rumor about Robert Moses Building a bridge too low for the buses to pass was true? I didn't realize that.

So the so-called "Ward 9" as we used to call PG county, in the District , was an early sign of what happened later across the country

Yup, redlining, and the FHA mortgage system. But of course, "This is not a racist country."

That's terrible overhead, the state giving away 30 cents on the dollar to private companies. It's also not democratic.

Poor people losing their houses to the conspicuous consumption that props up the gentrifiers... Great.

"... developers reap profit by charging the highest rents they can to poor people and skimping on repairs, milking buildings for all they're worth, and then they benefit from kicking out those residents, making repairs, and charging much more money to new residents."

And they get away with this highway robbery, unfortunately.